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Salvation begins with the forgiveness of our sins. We can receive this instantly when we repent of our sinful life and surrender to Jesus as our Saviour. But this is just the beginning of salvation through which God wants to restore us to the original plan for man, and that is for us to become like His first Son, Jesus. Forgiveness is not enough for that, but our sinful behaviour has to get transformed to a godly life in every aspect of our life, in our thoughts, words and deeds. This is the second phase of salvation called sanctification. Salvation will be perfect when we finally stand before God in eternity when we receive glorified bodies without sin.

So, as long as we continue to sin, our salvation is not complete. Some Christians think that all they need is forgiveness whenever they sin, but Jesus came to save us 'from our sins' and not just from its punishment (Mt.1:21).

Another way of looking at the progress of our experience of salvation is to be born again, to get baptised in water, to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and to become disciples of Jesus who seek to learn from Him and follow His example in every part of their life. It is when we receive forgiveness from God that He causes us to be born again with a new nature and He accepts us as His children. We then testify to that when we get baptised in water, recognising that our old life is now buried with Christ and we are going to live with Him in the new life (Ro.6:4). Then we seek to be baptised in the Holy Spirit in order to receive power to live as His disciples and become witnesses for Him (Ac.1:8).

There is still another way of looking at the progress of salvation. Not everyone comes to Jesus at first repenting from their sins. Some come to Him for some practical help such as healing or answers to some problems in their life. They begin to follow Him when they see that He is real and He answers prayers of helpless people. But they may not be born again yet. Hopefully, now that they have come near to God they can hear the Gospel and respond to it with repentance and faith.

For all these groups, when we come to sanctification, we have to learn many things on a daily basis about what sin means in our life and how we need to become more like Jesus. This is a never ending process as long as we are on earth. We need to understand God's nature and His ways, learn in a practical way how to deal with temptations through the help of the Holy Spirit, etc.

There is so much to learn and so much to grow into that it is a most foolish thing to imagine that 'we have been saved' and there is nothing more to be done. God was working in us to draw us to Him, convict us about our sins and to show us the salvation that He had prepared for us. Now He is working in us to give us the desire to do His will and the ability to do it. It is our responsibility to respond to Him and work it out in our practical life (Php.2:12,13). Isn't this a wonderful calling?

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